The high-profile general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Arun Jaitley, was again conspicuous by his absence at the party’s Central Election Committee meeting at New Delhi called on Tuesday to decide on 67 seats for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Arun Jaitley is miffed at the appointment of Sudhanshu Mittal as co-convener for northeast. This has lead to a direct confrontation between the party president Rajnath Singh and general secretary Arun Jaitley. S.S. Ahluwalia is presently the convenor for the northeast. Efforts resolve to the deadlock hit a roadblock when Sudhanshu refused to step down on his own. Rajnath Singh has ruled out Mittal’s removal.

This issue has resulted in a vertical divide in the top brass of the BJP with Advani standing by Arun Jaitley. Rajnath Singh finds support from Venkaiah Naidu, Murali Manohar Joshi and Sushma Swaraj. Jaitley’s stance is being supported by Advani and company. The Advani camp includes Narendra Modi and Anant Kumar.

The battle lines are drawn. The war of nerves has begun. It remains to be seen as to who blinks first.
In the midst of all this, there is a silver lining in the cloud for the Advani camp. The prodigal daughter, Uma Bharti, who walked out of a meeting chaired by Advani in a huff and floated her own Bharatiya Janshakti Party is now rooting for Advani’s prime ministership.

This row has cropped up when the BJP could have done without it. What with its trusted allies walking out on BJP?

Meanwhile, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has stepped in to find a solution to this standoff. Till such time as the deadlock breaks and the matter is settled this way or that way, it is BJP vs BJP in the coming elections!